2. Starting a Club

Before starting a club, you should investigate what Go clubs there are
near you: if you are in Britain, you can find them shown on the BGA
club map[1].
You might visit one of them, for ideas and assisitance. You might plan
your meetings to be on different days from theirs, to avoid clashes and
provide more choice for nearby players.

The hardest part of setting up a new club is to find other players. The BGA
Membership Secretary[2] will be able to help, by providing a list of nearby
BGA members. There may also be Go players nearby who are not BGA members;
these will be more difficult to find. Many people play Go on the Internet,
so you might use a Go server to try to contact local players. In particular,
KGS[3] has a "British Room", listed under
"national". Other ways to find such players include posting an announcement
to the gotalk[4] mailing
list, or to lifein19x19.com[5].
Alternatively try igolocal.net [6].

2.1 Setting Up

Once you have a nucleus of players (this can be as little as two) you
can start to arrange regular meetings. These can be weekly, which is probably
best, or less frequently. An initial
venue can be a member's front room; once established there, you
can contemplate expansion. Many go clubs have originated like this.

Of the other possibilities for a venue, the most common is one associated
with a member's occupation. This includes a university (if he is a student or
a lecturer), firm, or social club attached to a firm. The great advantages are
that these are generally cheap – financial assistance may even be available
– and usually fairly salubrious. Publicity aimed at fellow employees is often
successful, but it may be more difficult to attract non employees. Rules for
social clubs are often quite strict, but only so as to cater for licensing laws,
and a method to include non employees is usually not difficult to find. You
should discuss the situation with officials of the social club.

Other possible venues are church halls, coffee bars, pubs, etc. They all
have their pros and cons, and local intelligence will often generate some
ideas. If you do not know where to start looking, find out where the local
chess players meet. The public library should be able to provide that
information.

2.1.1 BGA Affiliation

To affiliate your club to the BGA, you must nominate a club secretary. The
secretary must be a member of the BGA, and should arrange to have contact
details published by the BGA. Club secretaries should encourage members to
join the BGA, and may collect their fees and contact details to pass on to
the BGA membership secretary.

When you have a regular meeting time and location and a nominated
club secretary, you should inform the BGA webmaster, who will add the
details to the website and arrange for information to be included in the
newsletter and journal.
If you wish to maintain your own basic information about your meeting location, date etc. then he will provide you with the necessary account for the website.

A major problem when a club is started is that of finding enough equipment.
The BGA can help affiliated clubs here by loaning sets for a short period
while the club gets going; contact the
Equipment
Coordinator[7] to arrange this. Collection and return will be your
responsibility; you can often do this at tournaments. Ultimately, of course,
the club should be self-supporting.

2.1.2 Joint Meetings

If there are several clubs in the same region, it is a good idea to arrange
occasional joint meetings with those clubs, perhaps also with a social event.
For example, a group of clubs in North East England holds occasional joint meetings
at weekends, with a barbecue in the evening. The main advantage of such meetings,
particularly for small or new clubs, is to give players an opportunity to play
different opponents from usual.

2.2 Club Management

There are several ways in which a club can support itself; a small club
can make do with the use of members' equipment, although you should make
sure there are 9×9 boards[8] to teach beginners.
Don't forget that BGA members are entitled to a significant discount[9] on purchasing equipment.

A club based at a university may be able to get grants from their Student
Union to buy books and equipment. The most common way, however, is to charge a small
fee. Two possible ways of charging are an annual membership fee, and a board fee
charged for each evening's attendance. Depending on the club's costs, one or the
other or both of these may be appropriate.

We recommended that the fees should do
more than cover the costs of the room (if any); the surplus can be used to purchase
equipment or books for a club library. Typical fees might be £10 per annum and
£1 per evening, with appropriate reductions for those in full-time education
etc. The details will, however, depend on local circumstances, and many clubs operate
free. Many established clubs are funded by the profits of running a tournament.

Usually there is one person, the prime mover, who gets the club going,
but he should not see it as a one-man show. He should delegate jobs
wherever possible, as this will help to ensure the continuity of the club
if he should leave the district. Typical jobs are Secretary, Treasurer and
Equipment Officer/Librarian. None of these duties is particularly
onerous, but people tend to be shy of volunteering, yet will do the
job enthusiastically if asked. The appointment of a publicity officer
could be worthwhile, especially if there is someone with a flair for
it.

Some Go clubs are officially set up with a bank account and a constitution.
Others have neither. If you want to have a bank account, you will probably
need to have a constitution. This does not need to be particularly elaborate;
the only important thing is to clarify the means by which the members can check
that their money is being looked after properly. A model constitution sufficient
for most purposes is given below.

Constitution of the Albion Go Club

The Albion Go Club is a non profit-making organisation devoted to
the playing of, and promotion of interest in, the game of go.

The officers of the club shall be Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary.

There shall be an Annual General Meeting (AGM) to which the
Secretary shall invite all members at least two weeks in advance.

The business of the AGM shall include the election of officers, and
the presentation by the Treasurer of the previous year's accounts.

It is, of course, possible to be far more precise about these matters, and
to define details of the many other aspects of club management, but in practice
such items tend to be forgotten or ignored or, worse, they absorb time and effort
which would be better spent playing Go. Most British Go Clubs have no written
constitution.